How to be a complete #Amsterdammer in few days

How to be an Amsterdammer. This is the aim of this post, I’m going to show you some little details and pics of the wonderful city, some places you can enjoy in few days 😎

Take a walk and breathe: iced air, wide open views, happy people and ☀️ 

The xxx, the symbol of the city, which represent the 3 crosses of S. Andrew
The only windmill in the heart of the city

People waiting on comfortable seats near Amsterdam Centraal – the central station

After the city center, it’s time for art 🎭

Museumbrug – arts’ area in Amsterdam

First stop at Moco Museum to enjoy disruptive and pop art by Banksy, the street writer from Uk, and Roy Liechtenstein, one of the pop artist with a bit of pointillisme in his works:

Crazy happy colorful girls 🌸

Here you are Banksy’s most popular paintings and stencils:

The rat by Banksy
The boy throwing flowers
The girl with balloon 🎈
The Banksy of England
The kissing coppers
Kate Moss + Marylin Monroe
Pink Mona Lisa by Banksy
Cloud Dj
View from Moco

Then there is enough room for Roy Lichtenstein: at the ground floor you can enter a new extra pop immersive world like in these pics…

🌺 Flo and me in the Bedroom at Arles, pop version by Lichtenstein of Van Gogh’s masterpiece

Second stop at Van Gogh Museum, yes that modern am maybe awful building you can see here:

Van Gogh museum
Van Gogh
Flowers by Van Gogh

keep on going…freezing city, iced Dam, white sky and seagulls:

Friends will be friends 🌸

Amsterdam means…

Warm up: gluhwein
Bull Dog 🐶 Coffee shop
Byciclesss
Houseboats, yes real houses in the Dam
🍕 good pizzas too 👏
#Jamesthecat 🐱
Artistic Bull dogs 🐶
🌷 tulips

#NoteOfTheDay by Elder Island ‘Black fur’

Lisboa and Sintra – two places where ‘Todo o mundo é um palco’

Lisboa, the city to go for a fast weekend or a very long vacation, where people seem to live happy and stuck in a old and authentic moment.

Here we are, with my dearest twin. After a long time spent to organize a trip together, we finally managed to enjoy some days together, in Lisbon and Sintra too.

Sintra, another kind of city, not so far from Lisbon, but so different. When you go to Sintra you feel like going in a separate space and dimension: the silence is the protagonist of the scene, woods and nature are all around, some tourists go up the hills and ancient temples are there to be visited and bring you into another time.

Lisboa – first trip

Bairro Alto is the name of the district where everybody suggested to go – ‘Barrio’ in Spanish and ‘Bairro’ in Portuguese – and there we went. Cais do Sodré is the name of the street where you can admire a work of art like this, by Bordalo II , an artist who uses the art as a way to be more ecologically-involved: he uses garbage and daily unused staff to create street works of art that look like animals:

Fado club in the heart of Lisbon

Then, you can admire an open-air museum, giant wall covered by surprising images and icons, theaters and museums, restaurants and clubs where you can taste Portugal and enjoy Fado session, the Pop Cereal Cafè – a tiny little corner which offers mixed combination of cereals, have a look at their photos, and please go to the LX Factory to have a very modern view about shops, gadgets, creative spaces and concept stores:

Pop Cereal Café, Lisbon
All the world is a stage – by Shakespeare

 

If you want to take a walk, just go towards Rua da Alfandega, Madalena, where you can find the ‘Church of the Misericórdia‘ with a very uncommon and ancient architecture in the middle of a modern street:

Sardinhas are one of the best souvenir you can take back with you 😀 They’re part of the traditional Portuguese food: ‘O mundo fantastico da Sardinhas Portuguesa is the name of the most popular place near Praca do Rossio, where sardines are collected and shown all around in this space that look like a circus. A tip: this tradition comes from an idea promoted by the EGEAC organization which tried to decide a symbol of the city in order to celebrate the “Festas de Lisboa” in June; in that moment, the city was covered by icons and images and decorations of sardinhas and all of them were stolen by the people: the trend started and sardines became one of the symbol of the city and the traditional gastronomy:

                                                                                                                                                                                    You’ve not being in Lisbon without having a sip of  the typical cherry brandy liquor: you can find those little corners as for example Ginjinha Sem Rival, which means ‘without rival’:

You can go on towards Rua dos Bocalhoeiros where you can find a lot of restaurants, shops, hostels and hotels too. It looks like a mix of modern buildings, very colorful and this old tiny places in the big square just in front of them:From there it starts the way to get to the top of Lisbon, near the Castle, passing by the popular district of Alfama: Tuk Tuks are one of the most popular way to get to the top and enjoy the city (even if I think it’s for tourist and I preferred to go by foot). Once you’re at the castle, there a lot of souvenir shops and above all, the wonderful cork shops: Portugal is number one producer of cork in the world, with more than 50% of global production on the planet, and more than 100.000 tons are yearly produced by cork-tree-portugal:

tuk tuks of Lisbon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sintra – second trip

Going to Sintra means going to Quinta De Regaleira – there are a lot of places like the Castle, the Museum o el Palacio Nacional, but please firstly just go ahead to the Quinta: a mystic place, magical gardens and statues, a total noise’ absence which pushes you into a different reality:

The Masonic Initiation Well at Quinta de Regaleira, Sintra

   

Does it look like Walt Disney palace? 😀

It is very authentic and full of mistery: there are secret areas and lakes and towers and so on… it is a mix of styles including Roman, Gothic, Renaissance and Manueline.

                                                                 Finally, don’t forget that Lisbon is the hometown of Fernando Pessoa, who is considered one of the greatest European poets of the 20th century, and David Mourão Ferreira, a writer and poet: you can find their icons made by black and white stone in Lisboa Metro, where there’s plenty of caricatures about all the most important people, artists and poets of Lisbon created by the famous cartoonist António Antunes.

#NoteOfTheDay by Gramatik: ‘Just jammin’

Let’s talk about happiness: the unrest, the friends, the best of the weekends – FieldDay London 2017

Happyness is the right word. Because thanks God I was having such a great time with some of my dearest friends, while we discovered about the terrorist attack that was happening in that moment in London Bridge. We read the news, but we just thought it was wrong, it had nothing to do with terrorists. We were happy enough, because in front of us, on the main stage, there was Aphex Twin playing of his tracks. Undoubtfully, 1 hour later we were totally immersed in another mood – searching for cabs, buses, and looking for friends that were spending the night out, just like us, to find out if they were alive and we could be back safely at home, and maybe discover any other relevant news to understand if the attack was still on. Not a very happy ending that Saturday night, but my friends and me were lucky enough, ready to enjoy the day after too.

Let’s talk about happiness.

Let’s remember how much the life is important, and how much it is important to share moments with the people who are important for you, enjoying life and being foolish at times.

An example 😀 ?

London Field Day 2017 – it’s the second time I’m attending this festival, and this last edition was probably better then the 2016’s one.

FieldDay London 2017
FieldDay London 2017

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Funny people and foolish friends ️

The first group we enjoyed: ‘Abra‘, never listen to them before, but it took 1 min only to understand how crazy and R&B and electro-funk she was. You could only start dancing, imaging old school giant funky radio on the stage 😀

FieldDay London 2017 - the opening
FieldDay London 2017 – the opening: Abra

then in the park, trying to rest while choosing the next group to listen to. That moment when you start looking at the surrounding and it happened to see a sort of Pink Floyd‘s revival – back to 70s✌️: stuck in that moment, they didn’t seem to realize they were in a huge lively festival where 70s were a little put aside 😀

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Then at the Barn stage

the best gigantic arena with a state-of-the-art sound system: Aphex Twin the top artist, then Nina Kraviz, Nicolas Jaar, Jon Hopkins (love him <3), Moderat and so on…

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FieldDay London 2017
FieldDay London 2017 – #ValerioVal
Field Day London 2017 – #Twi
not so ordinary life – #FieldDay
random yoga – #FieldDay

And the arenas, with great sounds effect, visuals and a lo…ot of peopleee:

FieldDay London 2017
FieldDay London 2017
Aphex Twin @ Field Day London 2017
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Nicolas Jaar @ Field Day London 2017

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FieldDay London 2017
FieldDay London 2017

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As to say, stuck in some moments, some blurred moments:

Stuck in a moment: FieldDay London 2017
friends pic – #FieldDay #LONDON 2017

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Pick of the FieldDay
Pick of the FieldDay – up to the clouds
the rest, the friends, the best of the weekends.

 

#NoteOfTheDay: Roses by ABRA, 2015 And you look like a fool | And you’re starting to know it |Your thorns are showing 

 

Ode to my valley: Valsinni, panoramas of the whitelady

This morning was an astonishing one. I’m trying to get the maximum relax from my off-days, but Whatsapp and Facebook still won..they have been my alarm clock, so I woke up and – as I usually do – I opened up my balcony: I roused in 2 minutes and I felt so lucky to have an absolutely amazing view in front of me: Valsinni, the whitelady

Panoramas
Panoramas

Valsinni, a little village in a valley in the South of Italy, is the town where a river named Sinni flows under its bridge, which is one of the particular feature of this landscape. The 1st main one in fact is an old little Aragonese castle built since the Middle Age, where – the legend says – a wonderful lady used to live: it was her cage where she started to write poetry and be in love with the natural elements of the surroundings..the river, the utopian sea, the mountains.

Valsinni castle 'Isabella Morra'
Valsinni castle ‘Isabella Morra’ on the top left

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Basilicata little bijoux
A shoot on the right side of the valley

Here you are some other details of the valley, the old town centre on the top side and the new one in the valley:

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Basilicata landscapes
Basilicata landscape, Valsinni
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From my balcony 🎈
View of Colobraro, the curse italian town

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Flowers and snow 🌺img_9046img_9048

#NoteOfTheDay Water under the bridge by Adele

F-lights; Projections and videomapping at Ponte Vecchio, rembering the disastrous flood in Florence

It happened by chance to be near Ponte Vecchio some days ago: it happened by chance to enjoy the projections dedicated to the Florence’s flood of 60s and stare at those symbols who were introducing the level of the Arno river during that disaster…

Ruler projections to mesure the flood' level Ruler projections to measure the flood’ level
image Santo Spirito and Santa Maria Novella and San Giovanni almost completely flood ed by Arno
image Arno’s level at Galluzzo and Gavinana (Florence areas)
Arno's level at Santa Croce during the flood Arno’s level at Santa Croce during the flood

Some of the projections were part of the popular Locchi’s archive (an old and professional photographer of Florence):

Arno's flood level Arno’s flood level
image Giorgio Vasari and ‘Corridoio Vasariano’

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Here you are the last videomapping images:

Florence flood projections at Ponte Vecchio Florence flood projections at Ponte Vecchio

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Milestone: 1565: the Vasarian Corridor was built..

1956: corridoio Vasariano was built

Milestone – 1593: Ferdinando I ordered to all the goldsmiths of the city to move on the bridge:

#OneNoteADay ‘Rivers of Babylon‘ by Boney M. 🌊

The last supper by Vasari unveiled: one night at the Opera of Santa Croce

Yes it’s hard to be believe, above all if thinking that that night was a Saturday night!

Who can imagine to be involved in a surprisingly exhibit on a Sat night? And in a church? Well it can happen, it happened. Saturday night, November 5th 2016.

It was almost midnight when the news came to my ears: ”The last supper‘ by Vasari will be shown at the Opera of Santa Croce for free – only for a night, due to the 50th anniversary of Florence flood – the disastrous flood of 1966 which destroyed half of the city…Vasari painting included.

Here you are what I was lucky to see..the Vasari unveiled at the Opera of Santa Croce:

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Last dinner by Vasari, Santa Croce, Florence
The last ssupper by Vasari, Santa Croce, Florence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In one of the inner room, there were projections related to the worst flood ever – at least in Florence:

Florence flood 1966
Florence flood 1966

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During that flood – it was said – that the most of the city heritage was completely destroyed. The Vasari painting that was in the church of Santa Croce at that moment, was completely damaged by the water, and that’s why its restoration has been chosen as a symbol for the 50th anniversary after the big flood.

Enjoy my last pics of the Opera of Santa Croce:

Opera of Santa Croce, Florence
Opera of Santa Croce, Florence

 

..even if I suggest to visit it to have a look and see directly the painting and the Opera too! 🙌

Projections and lights in Santa Croce, Florence
Projections and lights in Santa Croce, Florence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#NoteOfTheDay ‘Only for a night‘ by Florence and the machine

Feeling Pink with the Brit Floyd, the official Pink Floyd tribute band

Starting with the Pink Floyd cover of Another Brick in the wall…just to be projected in the context…

Well, pink, that’s how I tried to be and feel yesterday while waiting for this unexpected show: the official Pink Floyd tribute band live, the Brit Floyd.

Before entering the show, audience was also warned about lights effects which could bother someone – this only made people more curious about what we were going to see..

first of all:

Brit Floyd - live show in Florence 2016
Brit Floyd – live show in Florence 2016

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Brit Floyd
Brit Floyd

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Then it comes the psychedelic version:

Battersea Bridge station in the back and psychedelic mood
Battersea Bridge station in the back and psychedelic mood

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Psychedelic faith and dark side
Psychedelic faith and dark side

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The grand final…image

#NoteOfTheDay Time – The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973

Long gone day, the song says

Long gone day.. is the title of a great song that came to my mind after I decided to have a long long walk. This walk had to be in a naturalistic place, with not many people, towards the top of the city – which basically is a place for tourists, but luckily, they’re not so mad like me to choose the warmest hours of the day. I generally love to explore these areas with long random walking moments which last almost 2 hours, maybe more…

And I generally take at least 1 picture a step 🙌 – these were the last 10 steps, the hardest ones:

San Niccolò Tower - Florence

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Florence from the top - San Miniato
Florence from the top – San Miniato

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Florence view from San Miniato Cemetery
Florence view from San Miniato Cemetery

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Florence view
Florence view

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Go walking, sightseeing and relaxing while listening to your favourite music thanks to the playlist you’ve just created exactly to enjoy your walk-state-of-mind. Well, you can also think about your life, but I suggest not to do it too much 😜💁

#NoteOfTheDay Long gone day by Mad Season

 

Magna Greece, arts and projections of a show in Basilicata

Magna Grecia, Senise
Magna Greece, Senise

Among the variety of things you can choose to spend it’s a good choice to spend some hours doing something you always think could be a little boring: I’m talking about spending some hours at the theatre, instead of the ordinary daily routine. It has been a mix of historical narrative about Magna Greece myths totally surrounded by a modern scenery full of projections, lights, colours and fountains.

I’m talking about a theatrical pièce which takes place in a new amphitheater built in Senise, a little town of Basilicata, in the South of Italy. It’s the first epic about Greek domination in this territory that then became Magna Greece:

Magna Grecia - myths of the origins
Magna Greece – myths of the origins

Magna Grecia - myths of the origins

Claudio Santamaria, main actor - Magna Grecia - myths of the origins
Claudio Santamaria, main actor – Magna Greece – myths of the origins, together with Giancarlo Giannini, one of the most popular Italian actor

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…the story is told towards the extraordinary special effects of water and projections, and it’s about Alexios, the protagonist, who wants to travel the world and this journey will make him widen Magna Greece kingdom:

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#NoteOfTheDay Inception soundtrack: Projections

 

Say Hanbok – the traditional Korean dress

Korean festival in Florence
Korean festival in Florence – Hanbok, the traditional Korean dress

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Korean mood has always been so cute and interesting, maybe because of their hilarious way of being, colorful dresses, colorful faces, colorful dishes, smiles and quiteness. It happened some days ago, while walking down the street, that two super colorful Korean girls were inviting people to enjoy their festival… and so it was.

Here we go, let’s have a taste of their culture. The first thing to do was to choose a Korean name – kkoch was mine, which means flower – and then enjoy a tour in their arts, discovering their writing style, paintings and origamis. Needless to say, the hanboks were the top, the traditional Korean clothing often made by silk and original fantasy, flowers, flags or abstracts design.

Korean writing and arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean writing and arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean writing and arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean writing arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean writing art
Korean writing art
arts at Korean Festival in Florence
arts at Korean Festival in Florence – Korean flagship
Korean girl 🍥
Korean girl 🍥
Korean writing and arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean writing and arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean writing and arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean writing and arts at Korean Festival in Florence
Korean guys - paintful life
Say kkoch! Flower in Korean – paintful life

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It’s a lovely and funny people, hope to know more about them 🍥🍙🍡

#NoteOfTheDay by R.E.M. Shiny happy people